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LinkThis is the on-line version of Link, the bimonthly newsletter of Fimcap.Edition October 2002
  Sama, sama ... i isa (We are all one)Mabuhay !!! "Hello and long life to you". This is a greeting in Manila, and how people welcomed us in during our short stay in the Philippines. That’s how people will welcome us at the next World Camp. During the last week of August, Zeger, Alveiro, Mette and Carme went to the Philippines. The aim of the visit was to start the World Camp preparations with Chiro Philippines. President Edgar Montiano, national chaplain Gerry Boeckaert, Bernadette, Marian... and many others from Chiro welcomed us with open arms, surprised and pleased to meet us. They had already been thinking about organising a world camp, but now the moment had come and it seemed incredible to them! After our acclimatisation – in spite of the jet-lag and the very humid climate – we started the preparations. We had a meeting to think about the various technical aspects of the world camp. Chiro Philippines suggested to visit a possible camp site in the north of the country, where the famous terraced rice fields are (8th Wonder of the World), to meet the people and the local groups. Our two- day visit came as a surprise for the local leaders, since it was unexpected, but they were very interested in organising the world camp and hosting young people from all over the world. They are looking forward to having the opportunity to live and work together in July next year. The decisions we took at the end of our visit will be discussed and concretised at the next meeting of the Intercontinental Bureau. In the next Link, you will have more detailed information. For now, I can you already give the dates : 9-26 July; a country: the Philippines; a host organisation: Chiro Philippines and a theme for the world camp: Sama, sama .... i isa!!!! Carme Carrion I Ribas   ICB meeting OctoberThe Intercontinental bureau met 5 to 6 October at the Fimcap office in Antwerp. One point on the agenda was the news from the member organisations, and we could see that a lot is happening at the moment. In Europe, some organisations are considering leaving Fimcap (or have already taken that decision, e.g. SUK). Others want to keep in touch but prefer not to participate in any Fimcap activity. A kind of correspondence membership may be something to consider for the next General Assembly. In Africa, some organisations are very interested in Fimcap, and want to join is (Senegal, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Katanga). We need to investigate the possibilities. In Latin America, we have been putting a lot of energy in establishing new contacts in Nicaragua and Argentina. We had a look at the finances with the help of our expert bookkeeper from Chiro Flanders, Ingrid Hertogs. One point worth mentioning is that many organisations still have to pay their membership fee. With regard to the financial situation in general, the balance is quite positive, but some large expenses are still on the agenda for this year, e.g. the Afro-Conference or outstanding costs. A major part of the meeting was devoted to the preparations of the world camp in the Philippines in July next year. Every organisation should have received an invitation by now, in which details and the conditions for participation are given. In the future, you will have the possibility to look this up on the Fimcap web site if you want to know more. With regard to the continental work, it was clear that the preparations for the respective general
assemblies (Euro-Conference in November, Afro-Conference in December) are the main points on the
agendas right now. Zeger Van Besien CYO GhanaThe 40th Ghana CYO National management Council meeting was held from 28th August to 2nd September 2002 at the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese. It was attended by over 90 CYO leaders from all the 18 dioceses and Archdioceses, including a record number of 14 chaplains. The Theme was "You are the light of the World". This theme was also part of the main theme for the 17th World Youth day in Toronto, Canada. The council meeting reviewed past activities of the national and diocesan groups through their reports and planned for the future. The major item was the establishment of "Late Rev. Frs Hugo Maus and Jan Voet Memorial Fund for youth formation. It was launched by Snr. Cr. Francis Andoh and an appeal for fund was conducted by Madame Kassisi. Most rev. Lucas Abadamloora, Catholic Bishop of Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese addressed the gathering on the theme of the Council meeting. He stressed on the properties of salt to season and preserve food and the light representing truth and faith in God, challenging the CYO members to study the word of God and to let it enlighten their minds and hearts. In relation to the current campaign against indiscipline in our society, the Upper East regional Minister Hon. Mahami Salifu charged the CYO, a dynamic Christian Youth group with sound moral training, to champion this campaign among their peers. He lauded the achievements of the Ghana CYO and sollicited the support of its members to help him implement his development programmes for the region. Mr Francis Avonsige, an old catholic youth leader made a passionate appeal to the Catholic Bishops' Conference to increase its support in cash and kind for the youth groups, especially the CYO. He further appealed to the conference to consider training some priests as youth Chaplains and let them stay longer with the youth groups than the present situation, where most youth chaplains change after one to three years maximum. At the thanksgiving Mass, CYO Ghana presented a complete suite of a traditional hand woven dress to Rev. Fr. Robert Edwin Hagan, the national CYO Chaplain, (who is going to the USA for a sabbatical year) as a parting gift for his 13 years work with the Ghana CYO. Paul Kelly Sierra LeoneThe Catholic Youth organisation of Sierra Leone request to re-establish Fimcap membership! As co-ordinator for the diocesan youth programme of our diocese, Kenema, one of the three dioceses, I would like to re-establish contact with Fimcap after loosing contact for quite over 6 years now, due to the civil war that ravaged the country for eleven years, which eventually brought all our activities to a halt and left many of our members dead. Presently we are working at re-establishing/re-organising the CYO groups at parochial level in all parishes of the Diocese and the other dioceses of the country. Things are not easy especially in the newly resettled parishes, especially when everything was destroyed. It is a challenging task. At this critical stage in time, we are starting all over again. We hope Fimcap can enable us to promote our parochial Youth movements in Sierra Leone. God bless! Fred Nyuma-T A changeFor some years, the youth of Chiro Burundi has repeatedly suggested that they are willing to share democratically entrusted responsibilities to give a new dynamism to the movement and to play an important part in this process. The big news are the elections for a new National Committee on Sunday, 6 October 2002, in Gitega. Preparations already started in the year 2000, but the elections were postponed twice, and even this year due to the insecurity in the country in June, July and August. Finally they were held in presence of the General Vicar of the Gitega Archdiocese Mgr Canisius Batembekeza, of the president of the National Council of Chiro Burundi, Hon. Laurent Kagimbi, and the National Committee. The young people can now take up responsibilities and the adults will to help them with their experiences. The new national leader is Jean Claude Minani. His curriculum vitae will soon be on the Fimcap Web site (www.fimcap.org). He is the successor of Mr. Antoine Cishahayo, who is an important protagonist of Fimcap history in Africa since he was one of the first African leaders present on the international level for all Catholic African youth movements. (See the special edition of Link 2000). We will have the opportunity to show our gratitude at the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Chiro Burundi in August 2003. The coming year will be a year of intense preparations, following our motto “We are the apostles of love, of justice and of peace”. The new leader and his team have a lot of work to do, now that Burundi is trying to overcome the crisis, Fimcap Europe will elect new presidium members in November 2002 and Fimcap Africa is preparing its General Assembly with elections for president and vice-president in December 2002. Zénon Manirakiza Three houses in two weeksFrom 18 August to 3 September 2002, Xaveri Burundi collaborated with the Burundi Scouts and the National Church Council in the realisation of an international World Camp with work and training in the Mwaro Province (mid-west of Burundi). More than a hundred young people from the Scouts, the Xaveri and JAMAA participated. Some slept at home, others at the camp. The main activity was to manufacture adobe bricks and build houses for the Batwa, a minority tribe that is being discriminated against. It was planned to build 6 houses, and three were completed – a tiled roof included – by the end of the camp on 2 September 2002. There were also various interesting conferences as well as two football games between the camp participants and the local population. The conferences were on the following subjects:
The NGO “Christian Aid” assured the financial support of the camp and its representative was very satisfied with the outcome. He promised that a similar experience would take place next year in a different part of Burundi. Young people had also come from the South of Kivu (RDC), from Uganda and Kenya and joined the participants from Burundi. The local administration and the local population played an important part in the success of this work camp. Térence Mbonabuca You will be my witnesses in AfricaFrom 21 to 25 August 2002, the second continental meeting of the International Forum of tzhe Catholic Action took place in Bujumbura (Burundi). The participants came from Argentina, Burundi, Spain, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Romania, Rwanda, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia. The aim was to get to know each other, exchange experiences, discuss the contribution of lay-people and the Catholic Action in the new evangelisation for a more solidary society in Africa and the whole world. The Forum was a success thanks to the active participation of the participants and the quality of the exchanges on the subject “You will be my witnesses in Africa: realities, challenges and perspectives for the training of lay-people”. Following themes were discussed:
Xaveri people from Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda took the opportunity to meet and get to know each other better, and talked about the coming General Assembly of Fimcap Africa and the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Xaveri movement of Bukavu (DRC) Térence Mbonabuca, who co-ordinated the Forum, presented experiences and projects of movements of the Catholic Action. Zénon Manikariza, Vice-President of Fimcap Africa, talked about faith, justice and peace. Térence Mbonabuca Fimcap Europe Bureau meeting 14th and 15th of September 2002For the first time since many bureau meetings, there was only one organisation missing or excused. This means that the table of our meeting-place in Dietikon (Switzerland) was full. Apart of the news from the organisations and from the intercontinental level, on the agenda we had the preparation of the Euro conference. We took some time for the working groups to finalise the evaluation of three years work. These evaluations will be presented and discussed at the Euroconference to give us some planning guidelines for the next three years of work. We gathered the information about the Roundabout projects that were organised and which is to be presented at the Euro conference. We discussed the tasks and profile of bureau members as representatives of their organisations. The document of the last Euro conference was our guidelines, what we did was some fine-tuning on it. At the moment we have only two candidates for four functions in the European presidium after the call for candidates: All the people around the table promised to hold an exhausting search for the actual presidium so that at the end we will have a good way of functioning for Fimcap Europe! We ended this bureau meeting with some information and agreements on the activities to be held after the Euro conference, At least now we know that the bureau meeting of June will be hosted by FDF, and the bureau meeting of September by KJG. As you probably already know the Euroforum will be in the Netherlands (in the ‘city’ called Buren). Many Fimcap greetings, Wim Selderslaghs  Ranfttreffen 21st/22nd December 2002Theme: «IDee» What’s your identity? What is it about? It’s a spiritual night (organized by Blauring and Jungwacht Switzerland), which takes place every year on the last weekend before Christmas and about 2500 young adults take part. In groups of about 12 people you will have a walk through the winter night. The way is marked with candlelights. In workshops you will get to know the other group members or make something creative about the theme «IDee». At midnight you will get a soup and a tea with other groups. After this snack all the groups, which would have started on three different places, will walk down to the Ranft (valley) with torches. The highlight is the impressive fair in the Ranft at around 3 o’clock in the morning. Every participant will receive a candle and all participants will ignite them together and illuminate the valley. After the walk back to the starting point you are invited to have breakfast with the others. Price for students and Apprentices CHF 20.00 and CHF 25.00 for workers. Information: Sorry it’s only German! www.ranfttreffen.ch Pascal Vonlanthen  Call for helpJong Nederland wants to publish an intercultural game book with games from different cultures. Therefore we are looking for typical games and activities for children and youth aged 4 to 18 from different countries. We ask the different organisations of Fimcap to write down their most popular games and activities and send them to the national office of Jong Nederland. For each game we would like to have the following information:
If you are interested in the final results, mention this in your contribution. Send your contribution to Isabelle Teeken under the following address: itn@jongnederland.nl or: Landelijk Bureau Jong Nederland Kaderschouw, 21-22 September 2002Jong Nederland Slagharen organised the bi-annual national leaders meeting of Jong Nederland. It has been a great success. Almost 600 youth leaders from all over the country came together to do workshops, exchange ideas and experiences and get introduced to the new two-year theme of the organisation which is ‘Time”. Jong Nederland chooses a new theme every two years. Throughout these two years all the activities of Jong Nederland will be based on the theme: Time. Together with the introduction of the new theme, a new schedule with programmes for each of the five different age groups of Jong Nederland was presented. The programmes were written around themes like, bedtime, time for each other, being in time, time zones, time travelling, childhood time, time to party etc. During the spectacular opening of the Kaderschouw, the participants travelled through time and saw games from prehistoric to modern times. Straight afterwards everybody split up and formed groups to participate in the 25 different workshops. Of course there was a workshop with games from around the world organised by the international committee of Jong Nederland There was also time to relax with cabaret and a big party with a good band that played till early in the morning. On the whole, there was enough time to meet people from other local groups and time to share enthusiasm about the work of Jong Nederland. Corno de Mol  |
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